<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The Lakers of the mid-1980s, a few days from assembling en masse at Staples Center to acknowledge the 20th year after the 1985 championship, have been watching this season unfold from afar. "As a fan, it's very hard to watch," said Jamaal Wilkes, a member of three Laker championship teams in the 1980s. "From a business point of view, it's going to have to happen at some point, probably better now than later. As great of a Laker as [Shaquille O'Neal] was, he wasn't as good as my friend Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar]. He certainly wasn't getting younger. You do it now, bite the bullet." Wilkes, 10th on the Laker all-time scoring list, said the struggles this season underline the work done by Phil Jackson in five seasons as coach. "It shows what a tremendous job Phil Jackson and his regime did when he was here," he said. "We took it for granted. Pretty awesome what he accomplished." Abdul-Jabbar, the league's record-holder for career points, said the rebuilding process could take longer than years past. "I think that the whole thing is a cyclical thing," Abdul-Jabbar said. "You've got to make certain plans and then get lucky to get in position to get the right guys. "There's not that much talent [to go around]. You have to do a lot of maneuvering to get the right pieces to play together. "It's a very difficult thing. You've got 30 teams vying for key personnel. It's a challenge for GMs these days." </div> Source
